“That’s your marketing to get yourself in the door,” she said. “You’re creating a brand for yourself.”

The Murrieta Public Library and Southwest Workforce Development Center are sponsoring a résumé-building workshop at 1 p.m. Thursday in the community room of the library, on the corner of Adams Avenue and Kalmia Street.

The workshop is specifically tailored to the needs of adults, many of whom find themselves in a position where they have acquired valuable workplace experience, but have found their positions eliminated because of downsizing or changes within the industry.

Consider the forklift driver whose job has been eliminated by automation, or the accounts receivable clerk whose duties were taken over by a software program.

Murrieta Adult Services Librarian Laura Davis has seen the number of adults coming to the library increase over the last four or five years, and she attributes it to economic conditions, and the reshaping of the workforce.

“Since the economy took a turn, we have seen a lot more adults here,” she said. “They can get their books for free, they can get their movies for free, computer services for free.

“I have seen a huge rise, probably since 2008. A lot of people have come in since then and said, ‘I’ve never really been to the library before,’ or ‘I haven’t been since high school.’ We have seen a lot of that.”

Davis said that through cooperative initiatives such as this week’s workshop with the county Workforce Development Center, the library can do more to serve the needs of these patrons.

Author Patricia Dorch has written a handful of books helping everybody from teenagers to displaced employees in their 40s and 50s gain a better understanding of the job market. Last year, she released a book called “New Rules for Workplace Career Success.” She is scheduled to conduct her own seminar at the library in March geared toward teens entering the workforce.

She said she has observed common threads in the situations of the older, more experienced workers.

“They’ve been downsized after 10 or 15 or 20 years,” Dorch said, “and they’re still young. They’re in their late 40s or mid-50s, and now they have to start all over again. And they find out that they’re lacking a lot of skills that they need to compete in today’s workforce.”

It becomes incumbent upon the job-seeker to figure out what transferable skills they might have — for instance, standard computer skills that could make them a candidate for re-training on an automated inventory system — and make sure those “skills” are presented in the résumé.

“There was a time when people put everything on their résumé,” Flournoy said, “and that résumé would get you in the door. Now you have to tailor the résumé and tell them exactly what you’re looking for.”

A little research, Dorch said, can go a long way, too.

“Go online to the company’s home page,” Dorch said, “and do a little research. Find some basic information about the company: where their headquarters is, how many locations they have. Are they domestic and international? What are their products and services? Who are their competitors?

“Because when they’re being screened in a telephone screening interview, or when they’re at a face-to-face, the first thing an employer’s going to ask is, ‘What do you know about our company?’”

Flournoy refers to the different modules of career management, from dealing with the emotions of being laid off, to networking and interviewing. Building a résumé, she said, is just another part of that process.

“We’re breaking up those modules (in these seminars), homing in and focusing on one area of importance,” Flournoy said.